


maybe i'm a crook (for stealing your heart away)

by hi_raeth



Series: reblog (mini fics + prompt fills) [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Post-TLJ, featuring the resistance gang in a flashback, rey gets her cake and eats it, rey is scarily practical and a survivor above all else okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 14:38:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14956538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_raeth/pseuds/hi_raeth
Summary: Eight months after Crait, these are the facts:1. The Resistance needs money - a lot of it, and soon.2. The Force Bond is still alive, and things are heating up.3. As ruler of the First Order, the Supreme Leader is one of the richest men in the galaxy.OR: the one where Rey makes Ben pay for something she was gonna do anyway.





	maybe i'm a crook (for stealing your heart away)

**Author's Note:**

> First things first: I think what I've implied in this fic _technically_ counts as sex work, so make of that what you will and proceed accordingly. 
> 
> Mildly spoiler-y explanation: Rey and Ben do something they've both been wanting to do, but Rey finds a way to get paid for it. All I can promise you is that there is very little manipulation involved and a whole lot of guilt afterwards, and they do clear the air towards the end of the fic.
> 
> Title taken from Of Monsters and Men's _Love Love Love_.

“I’ve never–” Rey whispers into the darkness, her eyes intent on Ben’s as her hand halts his path downwards. “I’ve never done this before.”

Ben stills, gasps softly, and Rey feels a tendril of victory curl low in her stomach.

“It means something to you, doesn’t it?” she murmurs, watching the way his Adam’s apple bobs nervously even as he looms above her. Her fingers lace with his and their joined hands are warm on her exposed skin, and for just a moment she hesitates to go through with it, this insane plan of hers.

But she thinks of their starving troops, of the soldiers they’re losing to perfectly curable illnesses, and her resolve returns.

She brings her free hand up to card through Ben’s hair. “It means something to you that you’re the first, that no one else has ever touched me like this.”

Ben drops his head to her shoulder, burrows into the curve of her neck. “Stars, Rey–” he groans, lips warm on her skin.

Rey lunges forward, rolls them over and straddles a dazed Ben into the thin sleeping pallet of her quarters, the plush mattress of his. It’s dizzying, the way their surroundings shift from his to hers to his again in the blink of an eye, so she keeps her gaze firmly on him, solid and present and unchanging.

“If it means something,” she recites from memory, from a lesson she learned on Jakku a lifetime ago, “then it’s worth something.”

Confusion pierces through the cloudy haze in Ben’s eyes. “Rey, what–”

She allows her lips to curve into a smirk as her eyes flash with a challenge, and Ben tenses as she leans forward to pin his hands in place on either side of his head. “What’s more important to you, Ben? Letting the Resistance starve to death, or being the only one to ever have me?”

 _Only_ , not first. She realizes her slip-up the second she speaks, but thankfully he doesn’t seem to catch on. Confusion slowly gives way to understanding, to conflict, and she watches his throat work as he tries to form a sentence.

“Rey,” he says slowly, hesitantly. “Are you…”

Something in her breaks at the sound of his wavering voice, at the sight of the little furrow between his brows as the situation dawns on him. But there’s no going back now.

“You have until tomorrow night to decide,” she tells him, and then she slams the bond shut and collapses onto her cot as the solid weight of him disappears from underneath her.

Rey lies awake all night, sleepless with equal measures of anticipation and regret.

 

* * *

_  
_

_“Bet you the First Order never has to worry about food,” Poe mutters over lunch one day, his forehead creased in concern as his eyes sweep the rest of the mess to find everyone splitting decades-old rations that will barely sate their hunger. “Can you imagine how much money those bastards probably have?”_

_“A lot,” Finn tells them, his eyes gazing into the distance, into memories he usually does his best not to think of. “A whole kriffing lot.”_

_Rose scowls. “So what? It’s blood money, all of it.”_

_Poe shrugs. “I’m just saying,” his voice is neutral, calm, everything his worried eyes aren’t, “blood money or not, it must be nice to send all of your troops to bed at night with a full stomach, to have the resources to patch up each and every wounded soldier.”_

_All four of them turn to the swinging doors of the mess, beyond which lies their makeshift med bay and two dying men they can’t save._

_“Yeah,” Rose says faintly after a moment. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”_

_They go back to their stale wartime rations, and the barest hint of a plan begins to take root in the back of Rey’s mind._

_(Three days later she asks the General how much the Resistance would need to get back on its feet, and is presented with a figure so inconceivable her mind crashes trying to process it. “_ A whole kriffing lot,”  _Finn had said. She hopes he’s right.)_

_  
_

* * *

 

After, with Ben’s arm slung around her waist and her cheek pressed against his heart, Rey feels her bones grow heavy with sorrow. 

“I’m sorry, Ben,” she shifts in his arms to look up at him. “I’m sorry our first time had to be this way. I did what I had to do, but–”

Ben tugs at her and she follows willingly, allows him to pull her closer so that she’s fully on top of him with her hands folded over his chest and her chin tucked into the cradle of her arms.

“Just tell me one thing,” he says quietly, his eyes dark with emotions she can’t read, isn’t sure she’d want to even if she could. “If it had been anyone else – if someone kind and charming and  _good_ suddenly appeared and offered you double, triple… would you have done it?”

“No,” Rey tells him instantly, without a moment’s thought. She can’t even bear to think of it, won’t let him do so either. Her next words she picks more carefully, weighs the cost of her confession against potential future gain and decides _to hell with all of that_. “It was always going to be you. It’s only ever going to be you.”

Ben smiles at her, slow and soft. “Okay,” he murmurs, hands coming to rest on her lower back.

“Really?” Rey feels a matching smile tug at her lips. “We’re okay?”

“I don’t know about you,” he grins, all lighthearted and happy and  _Ben_ as his hands move to skim along her sides, his warm fingertips dancing up and down her ribs and waist and hips in a decidedly playful move, “but I’m more than okay.”

Rey allows an unfamiliar giggle to bubble past her lips. Tomorrow she’ll present the General with the credits, assure her they were gained through honest means and implore her not to ask more questions. Tomorrow the Resistance will get back to its feet and gear up for yet another fight against the First Order.

But for now she’ll allow herself tonight, allow her and Ben this one moment of peace before they’re forced to lock this memory away and focus on reality. And who knows – if the conflict in him ever turns to resolution, maybe she’ll be able to tell the General where the money really came from after all. Knowing that he helped them long before his defection might endear him to the Resistance when the time comes.

“What are you thinking about?” Ben asks, watching her with a lazy, fond smile as she rolls off of him and burrows into his side. He’s warm, and she’s comfortable, and her eyelids are starting to feel heavy.

“Us,” she tells him simply, pressing a kiss to his shoulder, “and our future.”

Ben holds her close and brushes his lips along her temple. “We’ll have one, Rey. I don’t know how, but I promise you we’ll have a future together someday.”

Rey sighs happily and allows her eyes to fall shut. “I know,” she whispers, her voice and his touch drifting further away as she gives in to the pull of sleep. “I’ve seen it.”

**Author's Note:**

> This turned out… weird. But let’s be real, it was weird from the start. A while back I had this idea about Rey realizing how whipped Kylo is and using that to get him to send food and bacta and all sorts of stuff to the Resistance, and Kylo would 100% see what was going on but he wouldn’t mind anyway because it makes her happy and screw the First Order, he kinda hates them now.
> 
> Then things got out of control and this tiny fic happened instead. It feels really OOC to me, which is saying something considering the fact that I usually write the most ridiculous modern AUs. 
> 
> Anyway. I hope y’all enjoyed even a tiny part of this. And as usual, please don’t hesitate to reach out/comment if you liked it or have any thoughts you’d like to share. Thanks for reading!


End file.
